the Ritter and his house for ever, nor its death-toll cease, so long as one of his name or family should exist on earth. The malediction was responded to. The youth had ceased to live—still the maniac rang wildly on. The mountain storm arose, and mingled awfully in the din. The castle was struck by lightning, and a considerable portion of the building destroyed, ere the wretched man, overcome with excitement and exhaustion, lost sight of his sufferings in death.”
“Well!” exclaimed Herrmann, “even supposing the lightning to have been attracted by the bell, the coincidence of the catastrophe with the crime and the malediction was, nevertheless, truly singular.”
“The old man’s curse fell heavier still,” continued the baron. “Some years afterwards, when the subject was probably forgotten, the Ritter was about to celebrate the marriage of his only daughter. The bridegroom was to have been received with all possible distinction and magnificence, and welcomed with ringing of bells. The lady, in her bridal robes, stood in the balcony, watching the splendid cortège of her future lord as it advanced towards the castle. The great bell struck up, and whilst the young lady bent forwards to acknowledge the salutation of her betrothed, she fainted, and fell over the balcony down the precipice below. Her scared attendants fled in all directions, and at last discovered her lifeless, but without external injury, among the brushwood at the foot of the rock.
Many visitations of a similar nature aroused the attention of the Ritter’s descendants. The bell might have been destroyed, but for the superstitious fear that the race would become extinct with it; so they contented themselves by walling up every entrance to the tower, and removing the tongue from the ominous bell. But the cause remained; and whenever a misfortune befell that family, it was preceded by a spontaneous movement of the metal screech-owl (so the old writings term it), and its dull prophetic tone fell mournfully on the ear in the dead of night. So great became the dread of it, that the family resolved to abandon their paternal heritage; and now, for more than three centuries that my ancestors have possessed the castle, the bell has never once been heard. Even the recollection of it has been lost in the lapse of time—at least, it never came to my knowledge. The old tower passes for a prison, which no one has felt disposed to explore, on account of the confined air, and its now dilapidated state. Had it not been for the dream of Elisa I should never have commenced the research, for in recognising every part of the castle she also distinctly remembered a tongueless bell. I made many inquiries of the oldest people in the village without any satisfactory result, and was about to give it up as a hopeless case, when I chanced to light upon some traces of it in the archives, which by degrees I was at length able to connect. I have not mentioned the discovery to my wife, nor do I wish her to be acquainted with it, as it would only excite her to no purpose.”
“That was, indeed, a death-bell,” said Falk, with a meaning look, to Cecilia.
“Avaunt! with your prophetic New Year’s ditty,” said Herrmann; “the bells will soon strike up merrily, to greet the infant year.”
“Yes,” replied Falk, mournfully, “and they will toll the infant’s mother to the tomb. That tale has made me melancholy; I see before me the maniac bell-founder, his white hair and venerable beard streaming in the storm-blast. I hear the father’s groans, as he summoned one child to liberty, the other to death. Really, I should never be easy in the vicinity of the ‘Metal Screechowl;’ I would have had it buried, and a new one hung in the church instead.”
“You only anticipate my intention, Falk,” said the baron; “as soon as the frost is over, the last trace of that crime shall be effaced. I mean to have the bell sunk in the river, the old tower shall give place to a gay pavilion, you shall pen the inscription for the new bell, and we will have a fête at the consecration.”
“That we will, and the sooner the better,” said Falk; “Heaven knows what other calamity the odious thing may not bring upon the house.”
